SENSEX rises over 450 points, NIFTY50 above 24,900 led by L&T, Bharat Electronics

The Indian equity benchmarks edged higher after a subdued start on Monday, February 2, led by gains in index heavyweights like Bharat Electronics, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries. The SENSEX rose over 488 points at the day’s highest level and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,942 after hitting a low of 24,726.

As of 9:55 am, the SENSEX was up 470 points at 81,193 and NIFTY50 index advanced 106 points to 24,932.

Asian shares were trading lower with South Korea's KOSPI declining 5% after a Bloomberg report suggested that an uncertainty over interest rates and concerns over sustainability of AI related spending led to selloff in technology shares.

China's Shanghai Composite declined 1.32%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 2.35% and Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.8%.

Back home, eight of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the NIFTY IT index's 0.75% fall. NIFTY Consumer Durables, Healthcare, FMCG and Auto indices also fell between 0.2%-0.7%.

On the flipside, metal, PSU bank, private bank, realty and oil & gas shares were witnessing buying interest.

Broader markets were witnessing selling pressure as NIFTY Midcap 100 index declined 0.3% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index 0.52%.

Capital market shares were facing selling pressure after the government increased Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on derivative trades.

Shares of AI and data centre related shares like Anant Raj, E2E Networks and Netweb Technologies surged between 5%-10% after the government on Sunday announced a tax holiday till 2047 for foreign companies engaged in providing cloud services by setting up data centre in India. The proposal is being positioned as a step towards strengthening the digital services ecosystem and supporting the growth of local data storage and processing capabilities.

Broader markets were witnessing selling pressure as NIFTY Midcap 100 index fell 0.18% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index dropped 0.5%.

Larsen & Toubro was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock advanced 2.6% to ₹3,913 crore after government hiked its capital expenditure to ₹12.2 lakh crore.

Asian Paints gained 2.55% to ₹2,417 after crude oil prices dropped in international markets after OPEC+ decided to keep oil output unchanged for March.

Adani Ports, Tata Consumer Products, Tata Motors PV, Eternal, Reliance Industries, Power Grid and Dr Reddy's Labs also rose between 1%-2.55%.

On the flipside, Shriram Finance, Max Healthcare, Cipla, Trent, Infosys, Bajaj Auto, ITC and ONGC were among the top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,712 shares were declining while 1,045 stocks were advancing on the NSE.